VOTE Oleg Kreymer for OCLC Global Council
Why not?
My principles:
OCLC develpments: on behalf of and for the member libraries
WorldCat as a universal repository for human knowledge resources and cultural objects
Cloud Computing
Web-Scale applications
Libraries rule the Web!
“So, What’s Wrong With It?”
After years of dealing with IT -related inquires of all shapes and sizes, I think I can finally point out my favorite question coming from an average, innocent user.
“So, What’s Wrong With It?” is an absolute delight. On top of being ridiculously rhetorical, it still contains a hopeful, but illusive possibility that some sort of explanation exists or can be found.
But, in the end, such possibility remains an illusion. The only way to answer is this:
“Don’t you see? IT DOESN’T WORK. THAT’S WHAT’S WRONG WITH IT!”
Libraries as a Non-Competitive Environment
Libraries don’t have any natural predators. Our challenges come from the environment.
In business terms: Libraries don’t compete with one another or with other cultural institutions. They are, however, affected by social, financial, political realities, which are largely outside of their control.
As a result of such non-competitive environment, libraries’ survival skills are very poor.
Technology is Designed to Fail
A Definition of Technology: Technology is Designed to Fail.
When we implement any new technology, we are sure of two things:
- It will break at some point, and
- When it works, it will not work as expected.
In fact, we expect these two things to happen. We purchase our technology with a service plan, we ask for a warranty, we have user support networks and professionally staffed helpdesks.
This is a NORM. And this principle of build-in failure is most apparent in the Information Technology, simply because we all use IT tools, without necessarily understanding how and why they were designed this particular way.
my FOAF entry
Oleg Kreymer
Simplicity & Elegance
Technology (technological solutions) must be Simple & Elegant.
If it isn’t, it’s not even worth considering.
Bluehost cPanel Screen of Death
